Alan Stewart’s UK and Ireland family history news

Irish voters roll 1832-38 goes online

A new database has been made available online that details those men eligible to vote in Ireland after the electorate had been greatly increased following the Great Reform Act of 1832.

Irish Origins has made available under the name ‘Fictitious Votes’ a database containing more than 70,000 names, details of occupations, addresses and voting entitlement criteria.

The voting lists provide the names of all those eligible to vote in rural districts of the 32 counties of Ireland, and also provides the names, addresses and voting qualifications for those residing in the Irish boroughs (such as Sligo, Clonmel, Cashel, Dungannon, Lisburn and Enniskillen) that returned Members of Parliament.

The largest section of the database details the electorate of the City of Dublin, providing a street-by-street listing of names, addresses and voting qualifications. Irish Origins believes that this is perhaps the most comprehensive and useful list of Dublin’s residents prior to the first complete surviving Population Census for the City (1901).

Those eligible to vote through membership of a trades guild or as a freeman of the City are also listed. In the case of the trades guilds (including doctors, merchants and smiths, etc) the name of the father or master craftsman is also given.

The Report is concluded by a list of individuals brought to the attention of the Select Committee on Fictitious Votes 1837-38 as fictitious voters.

“While this collection does not reproduce the minutes of evidence given to Committee, it does reproduce the voluminous Appendices and Indexes, which encompass some 900 pages,” says Irish Origins.

“The usefulness of the lists of the electorate, especially for the Corporation [of Dublin] and other towns and cities in Ireland returning Members of Parliament, cannot be over-emphasised. Only a handful of postal and/or street directories are extant for the majority of the towns and villages of Ireland. Although Dublin and Belfast fair a great deal better, these lists add greatly to the available material on urban residents currently available.”